The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) is proud to recognize Paul R. Amato, Ph.D., and Sarah E. Patterson, Ph.D., as the 2018 recipients of the Reuben Hill Award, which is given to the author(s) of an outstanding article or book that combines theory and methodology to analyze and interpret a significant family issue. Their article is titled “The Intergenerational Transmission of Union Instability in Early Adulthood.”

Paul R. Amato is the Arnold and Bette Hoffman Professor Emeritus of Family Sociology and Demography at Pennsylvania State University. He has published 155 journal articles and book chapters, written five books, and edited three scholarly volumes. According to Google Scholar, his publications have been cited more than 40,000 times. He has received the Distinguished Career Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association, the Stanley Cohen Distinguished Research Award from the American Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, and the Ernest W. Burgess Award from NCFR. In 2010 he was elected chair of the Family Section of the American Sociological Association, and in 2011 he was elected president of NCFR.

Dr. Patterson is a postdoctoral fellow on the “Care, Retirement and Wellbeing of Older People across Different Welfare Regimes” project with Rachel Margolis at the University of Western Ontario.  She is also a 2017-2018 Work and Family Researchers Network Early Career Fellow. In August 2017, Sarah earned a dual Ph.D. in sociology and demography from Pennsylvania State University (PSU).  While attending PSU, she was a Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development Predoctoral Family Demography Trainee. Her work has been published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Family Issues, Gender & Society, Social Science Research, and Child Indicators Research.

The recipients will be recognized for their achievement at the 2018 NCFR Annual Conference, Nov. 7-10 in San Diego, California.

The award is given in memory of Reuben Hill, who had a distinguished career as a university professor and pioneered the scholarly study of family. Dr. Hill is remembered for his determination to promote high-quality research and advance theory about families with the intent of producing practical benefits for families.

The National Council on Family Relations is the premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families. NCFR has a membership of nearly 3,000 family researchers, practitioners and educators. For more information on the National Council on Family Relations or its scholarly publications, visit the NCFR website at ncfr.org.